Edward Gould Tribute
by LeafeonLover13
Summary: (Eddsworld) Nothing but a written tribute to Edd Gould. Rated T because of a little bit of cursing.


Edward Gould.

To many, that is simply the name of a man they have never heard of. But to many others, including myself, it is the name of a British man who animated extremely well, and who inspired thousands of people before his death on March 25th, 2012.

Hundreds of thousands of people were saddened by his passing, and I would not doubt that many cried as well. I know I did. Right after Tom said those words, "Edd may be gone, but his world will keep on spinning." I just couldn't help myself…I burst into tears. I cried for almost five minutes, just playing those eleven words, over and over… I was glad that I was alone at the time. I don't like crying in front of others….

After I watched that video, I went on to watch Darksquidge's _My Friend Died.._, and that just made it worse. For the next several weeks after that, all I could think about was Edd's death. I almost cried once in the middle of school, thinking of it. A couple of months after that, I was with my dad in Tennessee (my parents are divorced. My dad has a job in that state, and I visit him every summer, and so far, every Christmas break). We-my father, my older brother, and I-were riding in his car to our cabin. It was late at night, and if I remember correctly, we had just eaten out at a restaurant. Or maybe we were coming back from a national park, I don't know. I had my DSi held up to my ear, listening to music (I had no quality earphones, and the only pair I did have I accidentally left at my house). My cellphone had only one song on it at the time, so Flipnote Studio (I can't describe that application, just look it up) was a lifesaver to me. I was listening to _Good Riddance (Time of your Life)_. I was at the ending part, when it plays the guitar, then says, "It's something unpredictable…but in the end, its right… I hope you had the Time of your Life…" I was thinking of Edd and nothing but Edd. To be more specific, a short, sad, story-like thing about Edd's funeral (God damn it, I want to know where the fuck that took place at!). Or I guess you could call it some sort of daydream, I don't know… To be even more specific, a short, sad, story-like thing about Edd's funeral where Matt brings Edd's cat, Ringo (is that cat still alive?), with him. I know, that most likely didn't and wouldn't have happened, but it doesn't matter. It was all in my head, anyway. The story-like thing went something along the lines of-as I said-Matt bringing Ringo along with him to the funeral, claiming that "Cats have feelings, too, and Ringo has a right to know." So when they got there, somebody was talking about Edd-I don't know who, it could be a friend, a relative, etcetera, whatever-and Ringo hops out of Matt's arms and just walks right up to the coffin. Matt tries to pick him up, but Tom stops him, so he just bites his lip and watches the cat. Ringo gives a curious meow-like noise and jumps up to the edge of coffin. The person that was talking trails off and stares at him, as does everyone else. He looks at Edd for a second before stepping into the coffin, then nudging Edd's arm, and meowing again. He nudges Edd's chin, then stares again with his ears and tail drooping. He caterwauls and jumps out of the coffin, trotting away quickly (to be found later walking through around the graveyard, assuming that Edd wasn't buried individually), clearly having acknowledged his owner's death. A woman in the crowd starts sobbing, and that's about when I started to cry, too. The music was nothing to me anymore, just background sound my own miserable thoughts. The DSi hid almost all of my face, so, fortunately, no one noticed me sitting there and crying my eyes out. I was being as quiet as I could, hoping my brother and father didn't notice. They were talking, and the radio was on, so I think they didn't. That little story played over and over in my head, and tears were sliding down my face. I couldn't help myself. Eventually, I started paying more attention to my music, moved on to a different song-one that wouldn't make me cry, one that would just make me…think. So I chose The Living Tombstone's remix of Gypsy Bard.

I don't want to get too far off topic, so I'll make this brief. It really and truly doesn't matter at all, and if you want, you can just skip this paragraph. I had always loved that Gypsy Bard remix. Ever since I first heard it, I couldn't stop listening to it. I couldn't stop wanting to run a mile. But afterwards… I couldn't stop wanting to feel that way… And after Edd's death started to really hit me…I especially wanted to feel like that all the time, instead of being sad all the time. It makes me think because of the lyrics. Just the way they are… A mare, singing about her hard times in life to make others feel better… Oh, that song is so great. Simply so great.

I've tried to move on. I've tried my best to move on, but it's so hard. Last year, I wrote a very short version of this on the back of my notebook at school. Just writing about Edd eases the misery, but only temporarily.

A handful of people will say that Edd dying affected them the most because of etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, or blank, blank, blank, fill that in with whatever you'd like. But I can assure you and them that they don't even know. Those people who say that haven't even considered what Tom, Matt, Tord, Paul, and everyone else who were hit hard by his death are feeling. I want to say I know how terrible it is, since I have spent so many hours grieving Edd, but I'm positive that I have no idea how bad it really is. However I would like to put in my story of what happened to me, following his death:

I was born and grew up in a state that Christianity is very popular and practiced in. But, thanks to the fact that I never went to church very often as a child, I honestly had a huge amount of trouble believing that there was a God. I've tried to convince myself, multiple times, but until the video of Edd's death, it was just flat-out hard. After I watched the video, and after I spent so much time reading comments and telling myself that Edd went to heaven, things changed. Sooner or later, I got to thinking, _If there isn't a God, why would there be a heaven? _And those thoughts just changed my view of everything. I remember thinking something once, when I was at a Sunday school in some church. It was before the thing started, and a woman was telling us about the stuff we'd do there. I did _not _want to be there. I would have rather been at home, doing almost anything but that. I was daydreaming, tuning the woman out and thinking about Edd. Then one thought hit me. One thought that scared me so bad, I teared up a little bit and my heart started pounding… _What if nothing happened to Edd after he died? What if he was just rotting underground right now? What if he never got a judgement? What if he never went to heaven? What if there was no God, no heaven, and no Hell?_ (Okay, that was more than one thought.) That was all that I could take. I basically frightened myself into relying on God and putting myself into Christianity, and I'm glad. I now believe-I now hope and pray-that I will someday go to heaven and someday get to meet Edd. That was a very intense moment for me. I still remember it vividly today. What I'm basically trying to say here is… Edd's death was a stepping stone on my way into Christianity. That's just what happened. Sure, the same thing could have happened to me with some other person's death, but it just so happened that Edd was the first major passing I had to deal with in my young life. Those thoughts were before I read the article about Edd's death on Wikia, which clearly stated that Tom and Matt were each given a share of Edd's ashes and he wasn't immediately buried. That article has these words in it:

_"Hey Eddheads. My name is Tom Ridgewell (you might know me from Eddsworld as the one with black eyes)._

_For the past 8 years, I have been the producer, co-writer, and co-director of Eddsworld. Edd was also my friend and.. Well.. You can imagine that this isn't an easy time. Not for any of us; be it family, friend, or fan. I'd like to take this opportunity to offer my sincerest condolences to everyone who has been hit hard by Edd's passing. I'm so sorry._

_But I knew Edd and how much he hated sadness. He dedicated his life to laughter after all! I'm not trying to cut the grieving period short but a lot of you have been worried so I'd like to take a moment to answer one of the questions you've all been asking._

_"What's going to happen to Eddsworld?"_

_Me and Edd have always talked (and joked) about what we'd do with the show if he wasn't going to make it. But we never really settled on anything particular. We always thought we had time.. But before Edd left he clear to his mother that he didn't want his show to end. Not with his death. Not after everything he and so many others had put into it._

_Edd wanted me - he wanted us - to keep the show alive. And that is exactly what I'm going to do._

_Eddsworld lives._

_Obviously Edd took his voice with him. I can't help that. But I'll do my best to make it right. To give his character a new voice._

_Please understand.. I can't bring him back. God knows I wish I could. All I can do is honour his memory and his wishes by giving you the best damn show you've ever seen. So stay tuned._

_The world goes round, Eddheads. The world goes round."_

After reading the entire article then that last part, my tear ducts were pretty much just like, _Well, fuck this, I'm done, _and I started sobbing on the spot. I was trying to be quiet, but it really wasn't working. I was able to stop well enough before anybody saw me, but I almost didn't want to. Right then and there, I wanted to be crying over Edd. Have you ever watched a movie or read _My Little Dashie _(that fan fiction is the saddest thing I've ever read, but not the saddest thing I've ever read/watched/listened to) and sort of just…wanted to cry? That's how I was feeling. I probably wouldn't have sobbed so much if I hadn't had such a crappy day earlier.

That was a week or two ago, on a Saturday night. It really wasn't my day that was crappy, just the end of it. My day was actually really fun, I went on a biking trip.

This is where I am right now, sitting at my desk in sixth period typing this while I have some free time (our school gave us MacBooks. Yay). I started this quite a few weeks ago but hardly worked on it until today, Edward Gould's 25th birthday, where I crammed everything in in the last minute. I wish I had it finished earlier so I wouldn't have to do everything so fast, but I'm a huge procrastinator. I couldn't help it.

In the five periods I had before this, I either wrote on our dry-erase board (why do we-my classmates and I-still have those? Come on, we're in middle school, for God's sake) or on a piece of paper then taped it onto the wall, "Today is Edward Gould's 25th birthday. Please do me and hundreds of thousands of people a favor: look up 'Edward Duncan Ernest Gould.' Thank you." Leaving that message, I hope I made at least ten people look that up and become Eddheads. I know I made one: my life science teacher. I stayed in class when we were let out for break and wrote those words on the board. He saw what I was doing and said that he would search it up sometime. Maybe he won't become and Eddhead, but he'll still look it up and read about Edd… I'm proud of myself. I'm so proud of myself. I only know of one Eddhead in my school aside from myself: my best friend. She's so crazy, she loves My Chemical Romance, and she writes stories. But anyway...

Rest in peace, Edward Gould. Stay Gould-en and your friends, family, and fans will keep on loving you. You'll always be alive in our hearts. We'll never forget you.

_"When you go..._

_Just know that I…__will…r__emember you!_

_If living was the hardest part,_

_We'll then one day…be together!_

_And in the end, we'll fall apart..._

_Just like the leaves…change in colors!"_

Paul will continue to do an amazing job of animating your show; he'll stay fan-Ter-stic.

* * *

(AN) How did I not cry while while typing this? No, really, how the hell did I only feel sad while writing this? …Why am I even adding an Author's Note? This whole thing was an Author's Note, anyway.

I did not come up with Gould-en. Please tell me who did because they're brilliant. I did come up with fan-Ter-stic, though. Since it sounds so stupid I bet a few people don't even know this: the word is a take off from Paul's full name and the word _fantastic._

Every single thing you read in this was absolutely true. I want to hear your feedback: If there was a list of people-fans, family, friends-who were affected by Edd's death, starting at number one for those who were hit the hardest and going on like that, which number would I be on? I'd like to know what you people think. Oh, and if you put it on or below ten, change it, because that's not right and it never will be. But I think it would be somewhere below one hundred. I'd also like to read about your experiences after his passing. If there is none, then just share your comments about this written tribute, write your own tributes, or just talk about Edd.

There was a couple of lines from the song _It's not a Fashion Statement, it's a Fucking Deathwish_ by My Chemical Romance. The song was stuck in my head, and I had to feel that the words kind of…fit. :)

It is eighth period as I finish this and submit it, but we're not having free time on our MacBooks. I'm actually supposed to be doing something about the book we finished reading. I'll do it later, though. Edd is and will always be more important.

I love and miss him.

We all love and miss him.

~L.L.13


End file.
